Systems for mixing and dispensing bulk materials to form products are known and shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,685,435 and 5,997,236 to Picioccio et al. which illustrate a plurality of bins for dispensing materials under the control of a dispensing system that allows a customer to select a product or group of products to be dispensed.
Material is dispensed from each bin according to the customer's selection and the dispensed materials are mixed to form the selected product. Similarly, coffee blending apparatuses are known as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,603,458 and 6,349,889 to Sandolo wherein various types of coffee beans are dispensed from different containers and optionally ground together to form the desired coffee mixture selected by a customer. US2005/0210834 to Kamineni is directed to an apparatus and method for manufacturing customized pharmaceutical dosages by mixing and blending pharmaceutical compounds to formulate a particular product.
None of the current systems available are suitable for mixing granular agricultural products which require a system that is very accurate, prevents cross contamination of ingredients and has safeguards in the event of an electrical power failure to insure that no improper dispensing of ingredients occurs. In agricultural products even very minor amounts of ingredients can cause severe crop damage or a complete crop failure.
Therefore, the development of an effective multi-product dispensing system for granular products and in particular for granular agricultural products, which can accurately dispense the correct amount of ingredients to form a product, prevents contamination of the product with unwanted ingredients, and has safeguards built-in to prevent inaccurate dispensing of ingredients in the event of an equipment failure, is desirable. A new dispensing system that can facilitate the dispensing of granular products has now been discovered.